The lunch meeting came on the same day Obama commuted sentences for 61 federal prisoners convicted of drug offenses. Those prisoners have not yet been freed and did not eat with Obama.

The events are designed to call attention to Obama’s criminal justice reform push, an issue that has faded to the background in the midst of the 2016 presidential campaign.

The president greeted the group in the Roosevelt Room of the White House and posed for a group picture in the Oval Office before departing.

“Turns out I’ve got an opening in my schedule, so let’s have some lunch,” he told the group during an encounter that was broadcast on Facebook.

Obama noted the group includes people who have successfully turned their lives around after serving years in prison.

He singled out Phillp Emmert, who was granted clemency by Bush in 2006 after serving 14 years in prison on a methamphetamine offense. The Iowa man took advantage of job training programs while in custody and now repairs air conditioners at a Veterans Affairs medical facility.

The president called Emmert "an example of what we mean when we talk about second chances."

Busboys and Poets is owned by Andy Shallal, a well-known liberal activist in Washington who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2014.

Shallal, who chairs a city workforce investment council, "banned the box" at all of his restaurants, meaning that he doesn’t ask about a perspective employee's criminal history at the outset of the job application process.